“Twilight, your date is here!” Spike yelled as he opened the door, a note of faint surrender in his voice.

Twilight made her way out to the front just as her date walked in. Her dress was mainly dark purple, almost black in its richness and opulence, contrasted with loose fabrics of vibrant magenta, and the whole ensemble was accented with thin, rich lines of gold. The tail of the dress reached far behind her, seemingly for miles, but a self-cleaning spell kept it pristine.

Her date was wonderful as well. He was tall, and strikingly built. The blue dress-shirt was not able to hide his impressive, delicious, white barrel. His mane was a cascade of liquid gold, and his eyes were a deep sea blue. The only fault laid in the fact that his head was currently located a few feet away from his neck.

“Dad!” Twilight yelled, angry and disappointed. “That was my date!”

Raegdan shrugged, the head and machete in his hands both dripping blood as he did so. “Sorry, little one. Can’t have that yet. Go back to your room. Don’t talk to anyone, don’t move without me, and lock your door. I’ll deal with this.” That said, he opened the door next to him, and carelessly threw the head inside. It landed with a thick splash on the pile of her previous suitors.

Twilight’s dress felt weird. Too heavy. Of course it did. She was just a nine year old filly, trying to fit into a dress that was meant for full grown mares who didn’t have crazy parents looking over their heads all the time. She struggled to crawl out of it, realizing that now she was too young and unlearned to have cast the self-cleaning spell. The dress was filthy, having being used to practically mop the floor as she walked around with it.

It wasn’t even her dress at all. She stole Princess Celestia’s dress and ruined it. She would have to explain herself to her mentor, and she would probably be punished by never having to do homework again!

There was another knock on the door, and Spike quickly opened it. After a beat he turned back to them, the exhaustion in his voice all too obvious now. “Twilight, your date is here!”

Raegdan sighed, and hefted his machete. “A father’s work is never done. I’ll be right back, little one.” He made his way to the door just as her new date walked in, a stallion of dark colors with a long, fancy cape, and a fountain of blood coming out of his decapitated body—

As Twilight jerked awake, the spasm of her legs and head was immediately noticed by Spike.

“Bad dream?” the baby dragon asked.

Twilight yawned and scratched her itchy ear, shivering. The library was not exactly cold, but you surely wouldn’t call it toasty either, certainly not after a nice nap beneath a warm blanket. The nights had gotten real cold out of a sudden this winter.

“Mmm… Same old. Has Raegdan left? What time is it?”

“Does it look like he left? He is still getting ready. He is worse than Rarity. Uh, don’t tell her I said that by the way.”

Spike finished polishing the highest region of the tall mirror. He stood as back as his step ladder would allow him. He examined the glass surface critically, making a small pause to buff a few dull scales. Done and over with, he jumped down and moved everything away, leaving the floor in front of the mirror vacant.

“Did we have this?” Twilight asked, curiously examining the mirror.

“Yeah, remember the experiments you were doing to create an invisibility spell by making light bend around you?”

“Oh. Right. That went horribly wrong.” She picked herself off the comfy chair she had slept on and moved in front of the mirror. “Didn’t Rarity want it back?”

“I don’t think she is in a hurry. She has, like, five more like this one.” Spike opened the door leading to the basement and tipped his body, balancing on one leg, inside. His left hand securely caught on the frame of the door, his right hand set next to his mouth as he shouted.

“Dad! Come on up, we have a big mirror you can use. It will be easier!” He walked back to Twilight, not waiting for an answer. “Hopefully, he’ll be done soon. He is supposed to pick up Luna in a few minutes.”

For a few seconds she just stood confused before the last fuzziness of her nap left her and she remembered. Right, Luna had gone off to Rarity hours ago to make the last few changes to her dress. Twilight suspected that she also wanted Rarity’s help to actually get into the thing, as Luna had spent almost half an hour inspecting it with bewilderment before making her departure plans known.

Rarity, of course, had been gleeful. Raegdan, not so much. That meant he now had to walk through Ponyville on his own to go get Luna. Twilight also deeply suspected that he had been planning to nip over to Rarity for help with his own preparation before Luna beat him to the mark.

The slow stomping on the stairs preceded Raegdan’s appearance. He was dressed in a modified suit that resembled a stallion’s formal dress, only in his case it had been far enlarged, and had been supplemented—of course—with trousers. There were other differences as well, subtle changes in the cut that downplayed the formality such clothing usually held. It was deep black, with a dark blue sheen, and it gave his torso the hint of an inverted pyramid. In his hand he held the end of the tie that hung from his neck.

“I need some help with this. Anyone knows how to tie one?” he asked.

Spike motioned for him to crouch. He leaned in close to examine the knot, and then pulled back. “That is a noose,” Spike said.

“Tell me about it!” Raegdan fervently agreed. His fingers were digging around his throat, and Spike slapped them away before he wrinkled the collar.

“No, that’s really a noose knot. That’s not how you do a tie!” Spike’s claws had no trouble getting below the cloth and pulling the knot loose. He lassoed it around Raegdan’s neck and pulled, looped, and wrapped as if he had been doing this all his life. After checking Raegdan’s cufflinks for possible fogginess and his gloves for cleanliness, he pushed Raegdan to go check himself over at the mirror.

Raegdan stood in front of the mirror and stilled. He cut quite a nice figure in Twilight’s opinion. Certainly better than usual. Rarity had been able to incorporate the ever present cloth mask into the design, not allowing it to look out of place by blending in seamlessly into the collar of the shirt. He had even hid the white bandage over his left eye by placing a piece of identical black cloth over it. It certainly attracted less attention to it this way.

He took a surprisingly long amount of time standing there, looking himself over. Every now and then he would turn to one side or the other, moving slowly as if underwater. He was mumbling, and from the few words Twilight caught she figured he did so in his own language. A few more seconds of attention and it hit her. He wasn’t mumbling. He was singing a tune under his breath.

Spike could evidently hear it as well. He was thumping his foot on the floor, following the rhythm.

“Why circle around like that?” Spike suddenly asked.

Raegdan took a sudden step back, knocked out of his thoughts. “Huh? Circle… Oh. Just checking myself.”

“No, you were saying something about being circled around, all around…” Spike tried to insist but Raegdan just looked down at him with obvious puzzlement. “Probably heard wrong,” Spike admitted, looking guilty for some reason. “So, what do you think?”

There was some hesitation at first. “It… looks good. I barely described it to Rarity and she nailed it.” He glanced down at his feet. “I would be wearing something better than old boots, but Rarity isn’t a cobbler. I… I like it.” He turned sideways again, his leather-clad palm running down the front of his torso.

“It’s a bit cold tonight.” Spike’s claw was tapping against his lips as he did a critical half circle around Raegdan. “We should have gotten you a coat.”

“No need,” Raegdan half-argued. “It’s just a short walk to Rarity and then to the restaurant.”

“Still…” Spike mumbled, thinking. “How about one of your cloaks? A dark one?”

Raegdan raised his finger forbiddingly. “I’m drawing the line at showing up like the phantom of the freaking opera. Heavens, I’ve even got the mask on. No.”

Spike raised his brow. “What do ghosts have to do with—”

“Nevermind, little flame. Are we done? Is this good enough?”

“You’re looking sharp!” Spike assured him, with his thumb and pointer forming a circle in a gesture that Raegdan had taught him. “All ready for your date.”

“It’s not a date.” Raegdan had been very insistent on this very mark ever since Luna told them that Raegdan ‘invited’ her to go have a dinner together on their own. ‘Maybe dress up a little,’ he had allegedly said while making his proposal.

So much for little.

“I don’t think I ever wore something like this before, you know?” he absently said, eyes locked on his own figure on the mirror.

“Really? You never went on a date? You mentioned you had a girlfriend before, I remember that.” Spike questioned.

Raegdan bent down, using his own saliva and fingers to clean some dust from his old shoes. “First of all, this isn’t a date. I know exactly what Rarity is doing, and she is wasting her time. I’m just humoring her, and most importantly, Luna. She’s never done this so it’s only fair we do since she wants to. Good practice for when she starts going on formal events like Celestia. Second, it wasn’t a typical relationship,” he slowly explained. His concentration was slowly shifting inwards.

“We knew each other since we were kids. In fact… huh, I did wear something like this a few times after all. Vivian liked to sneak into my parents closet and get out their wedding clothes. We must have been… eight? Nine years old? We used to wear them, pretend we were getting married, and in process rip a hole or two in them since they were so big we could barely walk in them.”

Twilight giggled, imagining a tiny version of Raegdan at Spike’s size doing so. “It sounds very cute.”

“I wouldn’t know,” he said, focused on checking his clothing for lint or hair. “But there never actually was a typical date. It just happened, as naturally as water flowing backwards. We went from childhood friends to… being together.”

Twilight’s eyes glinted. “If she was pretending to be marrying you since you were nine, I don’t think it occured ‘naturally’,” she taunted.

“Wow.” Spike was absently looking upwards with a face of admiration. “Either she was really good or you were really thick. Boy, I hope I’ll never be that oblivious!”

“What? No!” Raegdan denied, turning to face them. “She wasn’t like that. I mean, it had been random chance. There was this party we were supposed to go and we both got the time wrong so we went back to her place, and she had brought drinks, and since there was no one else we drank it, started talking, we started joking about who in our group could be a couple and… No. No, no! Look, I never even went on a real date with her, understand? I—”

Raegdan’s head snapped up, his eyes looking to the realm of the impossible and frightful future. “Oh heavens. I’ve never gone on a date. This is my first date!”

“I thought this wasn’t a date,” Spike proclaimed smugly and loudly, folding his arms with a satisfied smirk.

“This is better than good, then!” Twilight clapped her hooves. “All the books I’ve read agree that sharing new experience help cementing and strengthening professional and personal relationships is good for you! This will do you both good, finding out together how you are supposed to proceed and tread new ground and interact with others in a new environment.”

That only made his body shake like a rumbling volcano. “I have no idea what I’m supposed to do!” Raegdan picked up Spike by the shoulders and shook him as if expecting the answers to drop out of the small dragon. “Am I supposed to say something? Do I just pick her up and we go there or… what about when we leave? Do we leave as soon as we finish eating? What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“I-I-I d-d-on’t k-k-know-ow-ow.”

“Just be yourself,” Twilight advised, obviously foolhardy.

“That’s a horrible idea!” Raegdan and Spike chorused together.

Twilight rolled her eyes at the pair and went back to her blanket. Why did I even bother in the first place? Why does nopony else but me have to deal with this?

“Luna, dear, please. All you have to do is be your own, splendid self.”

“That is a horrible idea!”

The dark blue Alicorn paced back and forth in the middle of Rarity’s workshop. Her lithe form was draped with seemingly unattended rows of translucent teal silk, darkening in layers with her natural color as the backdrop. Delicate tails of fabric danced in the wind of her passing, and in the flows of her star-filled mane and tail she might as well have been swimming among the cosmos. Strategically placed ebony and silver strips broke the pattern and created another, making her seem an errant, brief dream rather than a creature of flesh and blood.

And Rarity had to keep running behind Luna to make sure she didn’t rip or wrinkle this latest creation with the sharp, sudden turns she took as she paced.

“He is late”, Luna mumbled as she cut corners around the circular workroom.

“He is not coming,” she argued to herself.

“He changed his mind.”

“He didn’t mean it.”

“He forgot.”

Again and again, her rounds syncing up with the bitter words, until she came to a stop.

“What was I even thinking?” Luna demanded of herself with venomous spit. She stood for a second, taking in the sight of the richest, most elaborate dress she ever wore, before she continued with a painful grimace. “I have enough. Wanting more might lead to losing everything. This is going to be a disaster. I should call this off...”

The pins used to both reinforce and hold portions of the dress up and away from careless hooves hovered still, as if similarly struck with shock as Rarity was at hearing Luna’s end to her little litany. “You don’t… want more?” Rarity asked, wanting to know if what she heard was what the princess really meant. “You mean, from your beau?”

Luna quieted, teal waves floating down as guided by gravity around her. “I shouldn’t—my what?”

“Your beau,” Rarity repeated.

As her head twisted clockwise, it was thunderously clear that so did Luna’s brain in an effort of understanding. “I don’t know that word.”

“It’s Prench.”

“I am not Prench. Why do you talk to me in Prench?”

“I meant your coltfriend,” Rarity explained, slowly.

“He is not—the Prench have a word for Raegdan? When did my sister take him there?”

I am talking to a mare that is literally a millenia behind, Rarity admonished herself. Why am I using expressions that are only a few centuries old? That’s practically a new-fangled modernism for her. “No, Luna. It literally means ‘coltfriend’.”

“That makes more sense. But I can’t have him as my… bow? It is stealing. Deceiving. Forcing. Name it what you will, but I would have thought you, chosen to bear Generosity, would understand enough to know how despicable I am being.” Luna directed her harsh words to the floor.

“I understand enough to know it doesn’t work like that!” Rarity sputtered, covering the indignity she felt as the bitterness in her princess’—no, friend’s!—voice startled her. “Oh, my dear princess, you have it all wrong! You are not taking anything. You can’t,” she furiously assured her, seeing Luna’s darkening expression.

“It’s not up to you if you are given something, not unless the other party decides to give it to you. Companionship, love, friendship, you can’t take them. Their generosity lies in choosing to give them.”

Rarity walked to Luna’s side and carefully bumped her torso with her own in the gesture of being close.”So you see then, darling, that you worry over nothing. Why, if he chooses to give, it would be insincere, not to mention rude, to not receive that gift.”

A shy smile dashed for a second over Luna’s lips, and Rarity latched onto it. “I saw that,” she said, playfully forcing Luna to raise her chin and a simpering expression to be duplicated in both mares’ faces. “You believe me, of course. Let all this nonsense that has been filling your head fade away. After all—” Rarity, pushed her meager acting abilities to the limit, placed her hoof on her chest, and spoke as boastful as possible. “—I am the Bearer of Generosity. That is practically a doctorate.”

“I doubt this is how it works,” Luna said, but her smile and poise rose nevertheless.

The Princess turned aside, watching herself on the closest mirror. “Is this good enough? Mayhaps my mane should have been different? Perhaps… something akin to yours?”

“Even if we had the time, I would strongly urge against it. Your mane is fine, and your shoes will do just fine, I do not care that they are weighted. Unless you step on his feet, which I strongly discourage unless he runs his mouth. No more stalling; you are ready. Luna?”

“Yes?” the Alicorn answered, turning away from checking her teeth on the mirror’s surface.

“Luna,” Rarity repeated, and her lips lifted in a warm, satisfied smile. “You are going to have a wonderful evening.”

Luna’s face brightened in such a way that made all the hours Rarity spent on clothes and preparations worth it, even if it had cost her more in favors and bits than Luna would ever know. The Princess’ filly-like eye spark and shiver of anticipation cinched the deal.

Suddenly and unexpectedly, Luna’s hooves wrapped around Rarity, pulling her in a fierce hug. Rarity patted Luna’s sides even as she could hear her ribs creak. “Luna, dear, your dress. It will wrinkle.”

She heard Luna’s answer as a trembling whisper in her ear. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Luna, I told you, this has been a pleasure. It’s no trouble at all—”

“For not… being as good a friend as you are.” Luna pulled back, and Rarity was once reminded how glorious the absence of a crushing sensation is. “And for thinking wrong of you.”

Rarity took to task straightening the folds and drapes of Luna’s dress in an attempt to hide her own pleased blush. She gave up almost instantly. She was overjoyed, and would not hide it. “Oh, please. You had made it painfully obvious in those first days that you had an affinity for expecting the worst. A few unpleasant, personal thoughts towards my person in the past is not that much of a deal.”

The Alicorn glanced at the door leading to the main section of Rarity’s boutique with a hint of unease and a shipload of stress, barely held at bay before turning back on one of her myriad reflected idols sparsed around the walls.

“I hope your efforts will be justified. I have an inkling of what fantasy you hold of tonight, and I assure you, Raegdan will not follow thy script. He shall not… I hold great doubt as to whether he will do as you described.” Luna chuckled dryly, her hoof petting the sleeve of her dress. “If he comes at all. How long has it been?”

“Luna, Luna, Luna.” Rarity reapplied a hint of lipstick to Luna’s lips to cover up the bite marks. The princess’ habit of biting her lips had to be stopped at one point, but now was not the time. It would only add one more point of anxiety if Rarity mentioned it. “You found a guardian angel in me. Who’s to say there’s not one watching over Raegdan as well? Have a little faith, please?”

My butt is frozen off,
Yet still I cling on,
But you take your time
‘Cause you’re a butt…

Uh… That’s why..?

Everypony had one talent at least, and the best one always manifested a monogram at the best place you needed an excuse for checking out. That did not, necessarily, exclude other talents. And then came a pony named Lyra, who could rhyme with the grace of a dancer on waxed marble floors. It was a slap from the gods of music, irony, and naming conventions, that’s what it was.

Lyra shivered and pulled the coat she was wearing tightly around her, disregarding the pinches from the inside. It was a humongous, brown monstrosity, more fit for a minotaur than a pony, and with huge lapels that almost hid her head completely.

Evening had set in and with it darkness, except for the few nests of light hovering below lamp-posts. She hadn’t seen anypony for the last twenty minutes. Winter had finally saw fit to reveal its teeth, and boy, were they sharp! And cold.

The corner Lyra was in protected her from sight and wind. She hid there, rubbing her legs under her coat, and waiting. With the wind not blowing straight into her ears the night was quieter. That’s how she was able to hear the muttering, carried by the wind to her position. She peeked around her refuge, and sighted her target.

“‘I’m here, are you ready to go?’ No, that sounds like I’m ordering her... ‘Good evening, you look amaz—’ I can’t say that. She’ll know it’s rehearsed.

“Say nothing? Say nothing. She’ll… think I don’t want to be there. Fuck!

“ ‘Ready to get this show on the road?’ Yeah, and then maybe I can do a moonwalk—never make that joke at her!”

A self-punishing slap followed his latest proclamation.

“‘Whoooo’s… hungry?’ Heavens help me, I think that’s the best one I’ve come up with.

“She’s with Rarity. She’ll certainly have dressed Luna up. Compliment her. Say… uh, say… ‘Nice color’?”

Lyra pushed her head deeper in the trash bags she had buried it in. Humor and mortification battled it out, and second hand shame had rushed in to buttchomp both opponents out and reign as the undisputed champion. But a job was a job. She dug herself out and called to him before she had the chance to hear him dig his own hole deeper.

“Psst! Hey. You, yeah you. Mister Fingers. Mister… Handy? Or should it be Mister Punchy? Whatever. Hey, stranger! Come here!”

Stopping with a deep, heavensward sigh, the dark figure changed its course. “Your mayor had me basically stripped, so I am letting you know straight out that if you called me to hear a crack about what I’m wearing, you’ll hear your spine crack.”

Despite his words, he had approached anyway. Lyra wasn’t enough of a fool to think it was curiosity. The tall biped was obviously looking for a reason to delay and think some more. Lost cause, if she was any judge.

It wasn’t the first time Lyra saw Raegdan, but they had never exchanged a word. Lyra liked to follow him around if she happened on him, rare as the sight of him without anypony escorting him was. She kept right behind him—though not in swinging distance, she wasn’t that much of an idiot—with her lyre in tow, playing non-stop.

Bon-bon thought she tried to soothe the beast with her music. Pinkie Pie had commended her on trying to be his friend. Applejack asked her how much did she value her lyre and why did she risk it. Rainbow Dash betted that if this worked she’d eat Lyra’s lyre. Mayor Mare had congratulated her on her attempt to make their guest interested in Ponyville’s rich culture.

What Lyra was actually trying to do was get under his skin and get him nettled.

He was a surprisingly tough mark despite what everypony said. Lyra even spent a whole day lying on some wood beams and went through almost her whole repertoire while he worked on his little construction project, and all she got for her troubles were a few nails thrown her way. The way everypony behaved she half-expected him to put her lyre around her neck and try to choke her with it as a hello. She felt thoroughly cheated so far. She wanted to be part of the fun.

“So?” Raegdan asked, standing in front of her.

“Got some rare things on sale, stranger!” Lyra said, sporting a wicked smile and getting back in the present and the reason she was here.

Raegdan pointedly glanced around them. “It’s eight o’clock in the evening. Everyone’s inside, and it’s cold enough to use a cut-off nipple as an arrowhead. I don’t believe you.”

“Aww, don’t be like that,” Lyra whined. “And here I was, thinking that you looked sharp on your way to your date, yet with your hands surprisingly empty.”

“It’s not a da—Hold on, what?”

Lyra grabbed the lapels of her coat and spread it open, revealing her body and all her other wares, the rush of cold air making her wheeze. “Got a selection of good things on sale, stranger,” she managed through jittering teeth.

Raegdan bent his knees to investigate further, his sole eye gleaming. “Oh. That’s… That’s actually a good idea. Okay, let’s see…” His hand reached inside. There was a pinch as he made his choice. “How much for that?”

Lyra grinned. Her hooves slowly brought his choice out with a flourish. “Stranger, stranger! Now that's a bouquet!” She put on a smile that would bring a saccharine elemental to shame. “That will be one hundred and fifty bits.”

Oooh, that might have worked a few days ago. Shame she didn’t have the chance before. Raegdan shrugged after a brief moment of struggle against his ‘finer’ instincts. “You gotta do what you gotta do, I suppose.”

At the height of his stomach, his hands were wringing an imaginary neck, Lyra saw.

“That’s the spirit!” Lyra egged him on, handing him the flowers. “What are two hundred bits worth against a smile?”

The eye flashed her with an image of her death. Almost scored, Lyra cheered inwardly.

“Nothing at all,” Raegdan admitted. Or so Lyra believed. It was hard to tell the words apart from the loud grinding of his teeth. “I don’t have that much on me—”

Lyra waved her hooves. “Say no more. I absolutely trust you. You will send Spike over with the money tomorrow, and if you don’t, no biggie. I’ll wait until you’ve left Ponyville, and then take them from Twilight. She’ll be so glad to pay me out of her own pocket.”

The wind blew harsher for a few seconds, whipping the free ends of Lyra’s coat around her, and all she felt was a murderous warmth, the likes you’d find in a full-grown, dragon’s belly or an incinerator. Then Raegdan nodded, took the flowers from her, and the heat was gone.

Lya wiped her hooves at a job well done. “Welp, last sale and all. Good luck on your date. I’ll be leaving, just as soon as… I start feeling my everything,” she said, tucking into her coat and back into her corner.

“It’s not a da—Forget it.” Raegdan held the bouquet of flowers straight and away from him as if it was a rabid animal. He moved a single step away, and stopped rigid. “Can I ask something before I go?”

“Yes, that is their normal smell,” Lyra assured him. “I didn’t hide them under my pits.”

“Funny.” Raegdan wasn’t smiling, staring at the bouquet as if it held a knife under his jaw. “Just out of curiosity. What is the… preferred thing to say when giving flowers?”

The neck of the coat was wrapped around Lyra’s head, and she had been exhaling into it for warmth, half listening to him. Mostly, she was day-dreaming. In her imagination she was wearing a hoodie; black, warm, and woolen. The monstrously tan coat would be gone, piled in a garbage pin, accumulated filth foaming up its waist. And as it would look up and shout “wear us!”... She would look down and whisper “No!”

Wait, what did he ask again?

The moonlight and distant lamplight illuminated him in a perfect angle to see his face—or what he didn’t hide behind that mask. One eye, the brow in a semi-circle of fear. The mouth almost without lips the way he strained them together, and the hint of the burns everypony whispered he was hiding under them.

His stance, strange and alien as he was to her pony eyes, was familiar in an absurd way.

Take a young colt. Give him unclear directions , and then leave him alone to find his way. Let him stumble for a few hours until, desperate now, decides to ask for help. Watch as the colt realizes how little it knows, how almost nothing was ever explained to him. The colt is lost, scared, and doesn’t know where to go and what to do. And its afraid to tell you that. So it asks, pretending to want to make sure, playing a role like an actor on a stage to hide behind it.

That’s what she saw.

She did not want to spend more time out here than she had to. She wanted to go home and pester Bon-bon into making her hot chocolate. Remove a few thorns from uncomfortable places. Take a hot bath. Annoy Bon-bon into making her a second mug of hot chocolate.

But Rarity promised her a warm hoodie. Beyond that, Lyra was a professional. When she took on a commission, no matter how much she was paid or the context, Lyra always gave it her best. Perhaps this job had nothing to do with music, but in a way it was about music all the time. There would be discordant notes if she balked, and she would not have that happen. She had one good thing, two if her friendship with Bon-bon counted, and she would not disappoint it.

And she didn’t want to shove her head among trash bags again when she found out through the grapevine what had happened. Jokes aside, it smelled, and now so did she.

She sighed as she stood up, and moved in front of him. “Alright. First things first. You don’t hold the flowers like that. You’re not going to stab her with them. Now, she won't probably know you bring them, it’s a surprise, so keep them behind your back, and when you take them out—Don’t slouch!—and give them to her, you will not say a thing. Especially not what I heard you trying out. Not even if it’s your life on the line. Just smile. No, try it again, this time like I’m not something you want to eat. Better. And if she says something like, ‘they are beautiful’, then you—’”

The lighting was low and comfortable. Candles and low-setted lights gave the restaurant a warm mahogany hue, almost reddish gold at places. Soft shadows cushioned the corners. Luna enjoyed it all, especially the bright sparks of candle flames across the restaurant floor, reminding her of stars. She felt she fit here.

It was all Luna could do not to stare at the rest of the diners. Half of them had chosen tables near the roaring fireplace, basking in its warmth and yellow light. The other half had chosen tables near the glass windows, and all too often they would turn and stare outside.

Where there was a clear view of Canterlot mountain outlined against the stars.

In her previous beliefs and experiences, almost everypony would have gone to their beds by now. But no, the restaurant would make a good profit this evening by the looks of it. Even as she watched, still unable to tear her eyes away for too long, a young couple strode outside after a very light and quick meal, eager to continue their night someplace else. The door closed behind them, and, her heart racing, Luna saw them both make a small pause despite the cold to look up at the starlight. Almost like a silent prayer.

It was as if watching her own most feverish and secret dreams slowly become true.

It wasn’t the first time Luna noticed something like this. In the last couple of days, ever since the paralyzing shadow of fear had diminished with Raegdan’s return from the Everfree Forest and the absence of explosives, she felt a change. An assurance that the world was now less threatening and she could enjoy it rejuvenated.

And in these couple of days, with the axe dangling over her neck gone and forgotten, she had been noticing miracles. At a window store she spotted telescopes for sale. Actual telescopes, made for night sky watching, sold to the common pony. Ponies sitting on porches during the night. That mint pony with the lyre, naming her melodies after stars and signs. A book in Twilight’s library cataloguing the best places to watch passing meteor showers and giving advice on which locations to select to avoid rushes and overcrowding.

Rushes and overcrowding! Of ponies, to watch the night sky!

There was still fear of her night. It had, in no terms, vanished or greatly diminished. The book, for instance, made note of some places to avoid as they were too close to danger, accidents and attacks that had been made… but ponies still went. Still rushed from what she read.

The rare pony would still only gaze at the stars for scant minutes at best under normal circumstances, and few would consider the idea of spending more of their night outside than needed. But even so, that was so much more than she expected. How much more could she give if she made the nights safer? She should be rushing herse—

She stopped, closing her eyes and mind to further thoughts. Slow. Steady. She would not burn herself out again. She would take no more deaths to herself, no more blame. She would raise her Guard until it rivalled and surpassed the Solar Guard in numbers and ability. She would not repeat her past mistakes with the Thestrals.

There was a pang of pain in Luna’s heart, almost imperceptible. What if you repeat it with him? it asked. She ignored it. It was a pin of doubt, not worth spending time on. She would take what she was given, not take by force. She was wiser now. She finally knew better.

One of the waiters, the same on that was patiently waiting a respectable distance away for them to call her, had led them to their table in a semi-secluded area. Far enough from the other patrons that they would have some privacy, but close enough to not be isolated and comforted by the soft, soothing chatter of ponies. Raegdan had never gotten the chance to speak; the pony at the entrance called for their waitress as soon as they appeared at the door, and seconds later they were seated.

She found it considerably strange at first how a small restaurant in Ponyville had a chair and table able to accommodate both him and her despite their height differences. It did make some sense once you calculated Rarity into the equation. A more careful look after that showed off more of Rarity’s touches that Luna would have thought possible.

The restaurant itself seemed to be in disguise. Cloth and paper wrappers tinged the overhead lights. The chairs and tables had been covered expertly so as to hide their frame and make them seem plushier, while the curtains that covered certain walls and giving the room this undeniable softness proved to be no more than unmodified cloth. It fell in waves in such a way though that it was almost impossible to tell.

Luna wondered how many ponies were here to see the two of them, and how many because of the unique chance they were given because of Rarity’s plotting to have a romantic night with their other half.

Raegdan across her was almost a faceless, reddish shadow, the only light part on his the reflection of the brightest candles on his pupil and his cufflinks as he rested his hands on the table, fingers dressed in his gloves and interlaced.

It was a big reason of why Luna spent some time examining her surroundings. She was giving him some time to calm down, or truth be told, to give some to herself. Here they finally were, after a small, silent trek through silent Ponyville, and she had no idea what she was supposed to do or say now.

Part of her hoped Raegdan would do something. He would, would he not? What if it was she who was supposed to begin… their talk? She glanced at the waitress, hoping to get a hint on whether she was supposed to call her and begin their orders.

He must have known something about how to progress. She was certain. He had arrived at Rarity’s fully prepared, holding a beautiful stash of flowers for her, presenting them to her with unexpected eloquence, and a smile that Luna safeguarded in her heart and dare not revisit for fear of dulling the memory.

Luna wished she held those flower now, if only to have something to keep busy with or talk about. Alas, Rarity kept them at her place, telling Luna she would bring them to her residence later.

Raegdan kept his eyes on the table, not looking at her or giving her a semblance of what her role was. She did what she always did when she didn’t know. She let the shadows cover her and half-hide her in case her stony facade crumbled and revealed her weakness.

After a minute or so he was messing with the tableware set in front of them, the empty plates, and the silverware. She watched him prod the sharpness of the fork tines with his gloved fingers. He tested out the thinness of the paper towels, and, exhaling nervously, he glanced towards the exit while his finger tapped the empty glass in front of him.

The waitress, a young mare with her rose mane wrapped in a ponytail, was at the side of their table at once. Luna almost suspected a teleportation spell, but no, she was an Earth pony.

“I am so sorry, Princess, Sir. Your appetizers will be here shortly, but of course you’d like something to drink first. May I suggest some spiced, hot wine to remove the chill of the evening?” The waitress voice was soothing and quiet, fit for lulling ponies to sweet sleep.

Luna made a mental note that tapping the empty glass was a sign towards the personnel. Raegdan must have known—or perhaps more accurately, had a similar tradition in his old home or he had seen Celestia do something similar. That would explain his surprise at it working. Customs were always so confusing for her as well.

No more than half a minute later the waitress had returned with a ceramic, covered jug. The waitress poured into two mugs, ceramic as well. Luna leaned her muzzle forward, soaking in the warm vapours and the smell of spices.

Raegdan lowered his mug quickly, spilling a drop on the table. He breathed inwards, mouth open and trying to cool it by rapidly inhaling. “Okay, when she said it was hot, she meant really hot!” he said, pouring water into a tall glass and drinking it hastily.

Pursing her lips, Luna blew across the surface of the mug. The steam danced and new ribbons rose as soon as she stopped, and with them the aroma of spices became overpowering. She sipped carefully, allowing the tiniest amount to drip into her mouth. The taste of sweetened wine, cinnamon, and nutmeg, unfolded on her tongue.

It made its way down her throat and into her stomach. True to the waitress’ word, she could feel it warming her up. She settled for a few minutes in the basking of the warmth and taste.

“This is very pleasant,” Luna commented to her closest friend almost unconsciously. She tensed for an instant at her first words of the evening, discounting her stammering thanks when Raegdan gave her the flowers. She pushed the awkwardness away with a little effort. It was a better ice-breaker than anything she could have come up with otherwise.

Raegdan’s head turned left and right, his eye weaving across every corner and surface as he misconstrued what she meant. Luna did not correct him.

“I… suppose it is,” he committed in an unsure tone, after some deliberation. “The important part is that you like this place. You do like it, right?”

A smile graced Luna’s lips, and she felt much more at ease. Nothing wore down anxiety better than helping somepony else fight down theirs. “Very much so. The wine, too, which is what I was actually referring to. Are you not going to drink any more?” She noticed he had laid it to the side after two shallow sips.

His finger pushed the mug a centimeter further away from him. “Too rich in taste for me. And I’m not forgetting that you haven’t removed the threat to my groin if I start drinking again.”

Luna almost spat her drink out. She had completely forgotten that. She used a napkin to wipe her chin delicately—Red Dawn’s lessons paying off—and voiced her mirth as choked laughter. “I think we can… waylay that one for tonight.”

He glanced at the still steaming mug, only to shrug. “Maybe. It’s easier to keep as it is that diving back only to have to get out again. But then again...”

“You could also remove your gloves. It’s too dark for anypony to notice.”

“You are supposed to eat here,” Raegdan responded.

“I don’t mind—”

“No. Gloves stay on.”

Feeling the conversation die, Luna racked her brain for a way to continue it, but was saved by the return of the waitress. “Princess, Sir, your appetizers. Please, enjoy.”

As she spoke, pushing a small lock of her mane behind her ear, two new plates were laid in front of them with an astounding degree of efficiency and graceful movements while replacing their wine mugs with tall glasses of high class, non-mulled wine.

Luna supposed she was describing their dish, but she only caught half of it as anxiety had returned at the suddenness of the moment, questions buzzing in her mind on whether she had to move, help, or comment back.

She inspected the plate. She had caught the word scallops, and she found it slightly strange that ponies in the mainland had a taste for fish-food. In her experience so far, it was an acquired taste of coast and river villages, borne of necessity, but Luna would be the first to admit she was a little behind on current events. Apparently, the practice had spread.

The scallops were served on a bed of fruit slices, fruit she wondered if she had ever tasted before, and marinated with dressing and onions, accompanied by a sweet smell. Appetizers was the right word. Her stomach silently rumbled, craving the delicacy in front of her.

“We haven’t ordered,” Raegdan said, confused, and Luna looked up, sparing a last glance at the plate in front of her. Perhaps it had been for the best she hadn’t given in to the urge to take a bite. They knew almost all, but almost wasn’t all—

The waitress finished placing their previous mugs on her serving cart. “Your dinner and menu reservations had already been placed by Miss Rarity, Sir. If you wish to make a different order I can bring you a menu.”

“No, no. That’s alright,” Raegdan cut her off. “Rarity’s choice will do fine. As long as there’s no hay in it, it will do. Thank you.”

The waitress left them alone again, and Luna turned to her food. It was just as juicy and even tastier than it looked. She was about to comment about it to Raegdan, when she noticed what he was doing.

“Raegdan,” she chided him quietly, taking care not be heard by the other patrons and hoped he hadn’t been noticed by them already. “Do not use your fingers to pick them up. Use your fork!”

He did as she said, but not before, Luna noted with distaste, sucking the juice out of his fingers. “Sorry. It felt easier.” He barely chewed as he ate, almost swallowing each piece whole.

Luna kept eating, assuring him it was alright and an easy mistake. Yet Raegdan remained silent, and after a few minutes Luna noticed how he was sullenly watching her fork move. She used it to pierce the scallop from above in an angle as she had been taught, and rested it on the plate’s side as she chewed. Raegdan, meanwhile, always kept his gripped, never resting it down. The tip circled the air in unrest.

“Is something the matter?” Luna finally asked. “If you are not enjoying the food…”

“I’m eating, don’t I?” He swallowed another piece to prove it to her.

“Is my fork seducing you? Are those naughty, naughty tines too wide open for you?”

His palm covered his mouth just in time to stop him from spritzing her with half-chewed seafood. “Heavens, you will be the death of me,” he breathlessly said after drowning his laugh against his glove.

Luna bid him to lean over. She cleaned the area around his mouth and mask with a napkin while he wiped his hand clean. She did it with nary a thought apart her usual worry of infection on the wounds of his face that he kept out of sight.

Rarity lowered the binoculars and held them against her chest. She let a loud sigh out as satisfaction and what she saw warmed her far more than her dark green clothing and the bush’s leaves.

“Aww. It is just like in ‘Wither Heights’,” she crooned, before hurriedly replacing her binoculars. She didn’t want to miss a single moment.

Her magic brought the cup of warm coffee to her lips after she took the first victorious bite out of her glazed, warm donut. Pinkie Pie is a saviour, she thought. If only I could figure out how she could have possibly guessed I would be here...

“No. Just… noticing something,” Raegdan finally said, pointing at her plate. “You are eating differently. Like Celestia.”

Luna blushed, feeling pleased, despite her skepticism of whether it was meant as a compliment. Luna wrote it off as him feeling admonished. “Thank you. I’m glad that my lessons with Red Dawn have stuck. I would have scarcely noticed the resemblance myself if you hadn’t brought it up.”

Despite his previous statements, Raegdan reached for his wine glass after all. “Yeah. It’s just as well. You’ve been spending almost all your waking hours with them. It would be such a horrible, horrible shame if it had gone to waste.”

Luna smiled, hoping to tease him a little. “Perhaps we should arrange some lessons for yourself. If we are to do this more often, then you should be able to tell when to use the fork at the very least.”

Raegdan lift his finger in a gesture that meant for her to wait a second as he guzzled the glass empty. “No, thanks. I get enough of their company during training and when we leave for hunts. I don’t want any extra time with them.” He replenished his glass, holding his hand palm up when the waitress made a motion to approach.

“It would do you good,” Luna insisted. “You barely speak to any of them save Leaf Stream, and that is mostly trading sharpened words or, if I understand correctly by the complaints I overhear, the two of you acting out a two-pronged assault on whoever pony lags behind. You would benefit greatly from them knowing you as more other than the figure that relishes punishing them. They could be your companions.”

He frowned at the thought as if it was loathsome. “I really don’t want them to be. Don’t we have enough friends as it is?”

Luna couldn’t help the smirk on her lips. “Oh yes. We are absolutely swimming in abundance. We are positively spoiled for choice!”

“I have you,” he said, and just like that she silenced.

“Oh.” That was the best she could manage. “Could not that change?” Luna proposed after feeling calmer. “You care for others, like me, Twilight, Cadance, and more. Why not them?”

“Are you kidding me?” he asked, slightly affronted. “What do they have in common with the rest of you?”

“One that comes to mind, is that—” Luna was interrupted by the approaching waitress who was eyeing Luna’s empty plate and Raegdan’s that had gone untouched for a while.

“May I serve the soup, Princess?” The waitress asked, shuffling her hooves slightly. Luna realized that the mare had been waiting in the periphery of her sight for some time, and was anxious over interrupting them.

“Yes, of course,” Luna said, though it didn’t feel like it. Plates of hot soup replaced their deplenished appetizers, and Luna did not bother even listening to what it was made of, her spoon stirring the milky liquid absently.

Her tail barely swishing, lest she annoy their customers, the waitress left once more, carrying their used plates, to discreetly await nearby. Luna held her tongue until Raegdan and her were alone.

“As I was saying, you care for those you do because you know them. No more, no less. I do know that you care for our guards as well, as much as you deny it. Tell me true,” Luna challenged, scooting closer to him over the table and pushing her soup aside before her dress accidentally stained. “Would you care about Spike if you had never met him?”

Raegdan’s puzzlement deserved to be enshrined. He looked at her as if she spoke mad gibberish. “What kind of question is that? Of course not.”

“Therefore,” Luna said, leaning back and relishing a victorious spoonful at last, “all that mattered was that he was close to you. A quality that can be potentially shared by anypony.” She frowned, and wiped her mouth. “A little too much leek, I believe. Or is it just me?”

Raegdan held the spoon in front of his eyes, the light reflecting on it giving the silver metal a bronze hue. “It’s the spoon that’s getting to me. It’s going to take ages to finish it with this one. Don’t they have larger ones? Maybe I could just drink it in one go out of the bowl.” He let the spoon sink in the soup, as if half bored at the prospect of eating it. “And I’m not sure I get the point of what you are trying to say. Sounds like what Solid Charge or one of the rest would say rather than you,” he added, his left hand nervously tapping on the table.

“I may have taken a few ideas and views from them as they seem worth testing out,” Luna admitted. “The point was that everypony is, or can be, equally important and thus worth knowing.”

She paused for a second, feeling a mysterious wave of slight nausea rising up from her chest. When it petered off, she continued. “It is a thought, is it not? And you could afford to take it slow. Do you even taste what you eat?”

“No. And I like it that way, thank you very much. It really helps when eating someone’s foot,” he said with a wide, proud grin before settling down in a comfortable silence.

Luna enjoyed her dish, taking pleasure in each warm spoonful. Her friend ate with his usual method, rarely letting anything stay in his mouth longer than needed until it could make it down his throat.

He had noticed the bread left for them, and he ripped into it, seeming to take far more joy into it that any delicacy or carefully prepared meal. He was chewing thoughtfully when he spoke, quietly. “It doesn’t work like that though. Everyone being important. That’s stupid.”

“Oh?” Luna rested her head against her hoof, waiting to listen. “Where do you stand your reasoning on claiming that?” she asked, genuinely curious for his retort.

Raegdan clapped his hands together, clearing them of crumbs. He gestured towards one of the two candles on their table, his palm hovering next to the flame. “Let’s take this candle. It lights up our table and gives us this sense of... luxury and warmth. It is important because it does these things for us, right? But what if we sat over there?”

The table he was pointing at, near one of the distant corners of the restaurant, had its candles lit, but was empty.

“What would this candle be to us then? Just a pinprick of light that has nothing to give us. It could burn forever or gutter out and die, and it would make no difference. Same as those back there.”

“But you know it is important,” Luna argued. Speaking honestly, she saw his point, and something in her, too abstract to call a voice and too indeterminate to call an instinct, told her not to contest the point. “Their value is still valid. They are only waiting for a pony to take a seat.”

Raegdan spread his hands, palms up. “So what? We already have our candle. And if we were outside, what then? Should we care for the candlelight when all we can do is sit outside and watch others who have plenty of that? It would be great for them, but us? A fart would have more value. It could at least warm your nostrils up for a second.”

“The candles would still burn their light nevertheless.”

“Whether this burns—” His fingers surrounded the flame and snuffed it. Luna heard the flame sizzle against the leather, and wisps of blue-gray smoke rose mournfully over the extinct wick. “—or not, doesn’t matter at all. No. This candle was and would never be important if we didn’t sit here. It’s as simple as that.” He relit it using its brother on the other side.

“You could change your seat.” The words escaped Luna before she knew she had thought of them.

Raegdan paused. “What?”

“The candles. They matter if you are able to move and change your seat. You’re not obligated to stay in one seating.”

They both viewed their surroundings. “Well,” Raegdan said, baffled. “I never said my example was perfect. Not every allegory is gold.”

Luna soaked a piece of a bread slice in her soup and brought it to her mouth. “Perhaps. Let’s talk of something else. How about a game?”

“I have one, I have one,” Luna cheered, laughing and clapping her hooves together in excitement. “The sea. Go!”

Raegdan scoffed at her challenge as he sat sideways on his seat, one arm draped behind its back. “Hah, easy. Alright. I was walking down a beach, searching for any old boat I could repair,” he started, raising his finger up and demanding attention. “Suddenly, a guy popped out of a huge conch shell. He was old as hell, and his beard reached down to his belly. His naked belly, let me add. If being covered in barnacles was not enough, he had a ton of shrimps tangled in his beard.”

“Shrimps lived in his beard?”

“No. So, as you can tell, he didn’t quite emit the fragrance of lemons and rose petals,” Raegdan continued, ignoring her giggles. “So, out of the conch he comes—farting so hard and long I thought there had to be another guy in there playing a trumpet—sees me, and says that he will grant me three wishes because my heart was pure.”

If any of the other patrons were annoyed or perplexed by her loud laughter, Luna did not know nor care. “Oh, m-my stars. W-What did you d-do then?” she asked, barely able to articulate, after wiping her tears with a napkin. She kept it at the ready for more.

“Tripped him and stole his pants.”

A fresh, dry napkin replaced her used one and Luna pressed it against her mouth, hoping it lessened the volume of her laughter. “W-Why would you d-do that?”

Scratching the back of his neck, Raegdan stared anywhere but Luna. “Obviously because I didn’t have any myself. I think I remember I needed a torch in a hurry and had nothing else to burn, before that part.”

“How many times have you had to put fire to your own trousers?”

“So, your turn?” Raegdan deflected. “I choose sleep.”

She tapped at her chin, thinking. “Sleep, sleep… I believe I have one that might suit the purpose. Stalwart Shield, before he became part of our Guard belonged to the Royal Guard, correct?”

“He keeps telling everyone about how I kicked him once like it was a medal I gave him, so yes.” Raegdan nodded with deadly seriousness.

“A thought occurred to me approximately six weeks ago. What if he was numbered under those with false theological beliefs about the status of my sister?”

“You mean if he thinks she is a god?”

“Goddess, but yes.” Luna smiled in anticipation. “I decided to test this. I delved into his dreams, filling it with the trappings of religion. Icons, books, altars and temples. But no being to worship. I gave him an empty frame that would be filled by his subconscious.”

Fully leaning on the table with both elbows now, Raegdan’s fingers met in front of his lips in thought. “Nothing but sun and Celestia’s butt as far as the eye could see, right?”

“No,” Luna winced. “It was nothing but moon and my butt as far as the eye could see.”

Twin slap sounds met her reveal. Raegdan had covered his eyes, and the laughter was disguised by a deep, intermittent growl as he forbade it from climbing higher than his throat. Some of the closest patrons shot a few worried glances and chairs scraped the floor as the closest ones made sure they had a clear path to the door.

“Y-You appeared in his dream, didn’t you?” Never had a person made a query that sounded this much like pleading.

“It would have been a sin not to. Pun not intended,” she added after a second’s thought. “As soon as I materialized Stalwart Shield gave off a scream that could make a Diamond Dog’s head explode. You know the one. Like yours the other—”

“Yes, I know the one, thank you,” Raegdan gnashed through his teeth. “Raven let me know as well.”

“And then he started trying to hide everything behind his back lest I see it.”

“Hide what? Wasn’t there a temple and all?”

“Indeed. But it all took place in a dreamscape wherein the impossible is feasible. On the other hoof, every loud thought or fear of his would materialize, conscious or subconscious.” Luna waited, giving time to Raegdan to think it over. He blinked, stared vacantly, and then barked loudly in laughter.

“I put an end to it when Stalwart Shield manifested an intricate statue of my front half in his right hoof, and the equally life-like statue of my back half on his left. Did you know that in dreams it is attainable to create golden buttcheeks that quiver and jiggle with every motion?”

The plates and silverware danced in a pummeling rhythm provided by Raegdan’s fist. “Oh heavens, that explains so much. He’s been hiding from me! He probably thought you’d told me.”

“The potential for entertainment in the future is limitless. If we let him know you have been informed and play a pretense of misunderstanding his intentions, we could have a lovely time.”

“I win this round though. The keyword was sleep, not dream,” Raegdan reminded.

The pony at the entrance of the restaurant was thanking a leaving couple for their patronage. Luna had taken note of him, and had been aware, waiting to watch so she would know how to respond when leaving.

“Dreams are the logical outcome of slumber and should be incorporated into the keyword. The fault lies in how you failed to properly define your challenge.”

The couple thanked the proprietor as well, and Luna almost turned away, figuring out it was simple after all.

“Maybe I did because I knew, I fucking knew, you would get yourself disqualified. And I was proven right. I’m finally in the lead on a game for once. Stop being salty.”

Then, the stallion helped his date into her jacket, and when they were done they exchanged a quick kiss on the lips before going through the exit, side by side.

“Could we have that?”

She didn’t mean to speak out loud.

“Salt?”

“I don’t mean that! What I mean is—is… I meant to s-say that w-we… What are we here for?” Luna stammered, ignoring the molten cores that were assuredly nested in the space between her cheeks and teeth. “You know that this was arranged so this could happen.”

Raegdan ducked his head. Luna followed his gaze, and for a moment she believed she spotted his hands shake. If they did, they stopped before she could be sure. The tips of his fingers pressed hard against the tablecloth, almost clawlike in their shape, and unmoving.

“I thought we were having dinner,” he said, his mouth an almost invisible straight line.

“You are playing the fool,” Luna said, supporting her weight on her front hooves placed on the table. She leaned forward. “I saw through your flustering. You knew how to act when you appeared with flowers. You knew from the very beginning what I wanted. I want this. Us. I want… I want…”

She was drifting to him slowly as she talked, her magic slowly moving candles and plates aside to make space for her in between. She closed her eyes as she moved close enough, her lips lightly pursed.

A finger pressed on her muzzle, sudden enough to give her pause. When it pushed her back, she obliged unconsciously.

Why fight it? She had tried, and had been rejected.

Raegdan did not look upon her as the whispers and fears hounding her claimed he would. There was patience, stretched and thin, and if she wished she could see more, a benevolence to what she had articulated, she would heartily take this fatigued sentiment over the alternatives.

“What do you want, Luna?”

He sounded as hurt as she felt.

Her hoof moved in a semicircle, encompassing their surroundings. “I want what they all have,” she vented. “I want some normalcy, I want—”

“You want what they have and you never did,” Raegdan interrupted her. “You want… something I can’t give. But you want to try anyway because the best option you have is the one person on the planet who looks as different as possible from—”

“This is not true!”

Only the constant reminder of reserving her pitiful magic and not making a grand show of how little she had any more kept Luna at bay, stopping her from creating a massive spectacle. If she had her full abilities, if she didn’t have a reason to restrain herself…

… She was glad she no longer had her old power.

“Maybe it’s not,” Raegdan conceded. He ran his hand over his head, and Luna sorely missed how he would do it without that black cloth on his head. For a second she missed the sight of him running his fingers through his hair in frustration more than anything else.

“But there’s a little grain of truth in there, I think. What do you want, Luna? What do you expect? A kiss and then we go back, and… then what? What will change? We tried that. You can’t, I don’t care about it, what is left? Do you just want to show off that you have someone, is that it?”

She breathed deeply through her nostrils. She was in public, and would not let her composure lost where ponies would know and mock. “Mayhaps. Spike wanted to show that you are his, if not to others then to himself. Is it a sin to share his desire?”

Raegdan nodded. “It might be,” he said, and it hurt. “They don’t like me, Luna. Spike is one thing, no one could keep anything against him, but you—”

“They don’t like you because you make it so!”

His palm hit the table. Pale shadows danced at the tremors. “And that’s what I am supposed to do! If something goes wrong, then I can be blamed. If they claim you are being influenced they will point at me instead of thinking of Nightmare Moon! If we need to do something drastic, then I can do it and no one will blame you because they don’t believe you have much control over me. They have to dislike and hate me, not you!”

“Expendable.” Luna spat the word out with all the hate she could muster.

“If it comes to that. Right now this situation is a joke, the pet that dreams of being more. No one really believes it. If it becomes reality it will only make things worse for you. Why are we even talking about this? We have too much on our plate as it is.”

“Not as much as we used to. The Tree of Harmony is gone, remember?” Luna reminded him.

Raegdan lowered his head in shame, almost. He should, as far as Luna was concerned. One of their major goals accomplished, and he thought she wouldn’t understand they had far greater freedom now?

“They are gone! The Elements are finally gone!” Luna sighed in relief. “I no longer have to fear them. Why should you still have to play this role? There is no need anymore! We can—”

“Celestia hasn’t said anything,” Raegdan interrupted her.

“So?” Luna questioned, not understanding why that should matter. Why he kept his thoughts on Celestia still, why when he told her again and again—

“I—no.” Luna shook her head, swallowing the knot in her throat. “There are a hundred reasons we haven’t heard from her.”

“If Celestia hasn’t said anything at all about the Elements losing their power, if she hasn’t raised the alarm, then there are only two reasons. Either she hasn’t noticed or nothing happened to them.”

“You mean…”

“We don’t know what the Tree, if anything, has to do with the Elements!” Raegdan hissed, lowering himself down as if whispering to Luna’s ear, a fake smile plastered on his face that Luna tried her best to copy lest anypony watching.

“But you destroyed it. You did it yourself, it’s broken. The whole cave came down, you said! It’s gone!”

“It might have nothing to do with them after you and her took them off it or it might be where they draw their power from. Or, and we didn’t think of that, it might be it has already charged them and they can still be used.”

She pressed her hooves on the table as hard as she could to still their shaking. “They might still be able to be used… What do we do? What do we do?”

His hand gripped her hoof, and the other one followed suit. His touch helped. “What we did before. Listen, as long as you keep your head down you will be fine. Nothing has happened so far, right? Worse comes to worst, it takes all six of them to use them, that hasn’t changed—”

“No!”

She spoke too loud. Some ponies were turning to stare, and Luna pretended to lean closer to Raegdan. It worked perfectly. Already, they were all turning their heads away, steering away from her personal life to a degree that would work to her benefit.

“We a-are not h-hurting any o-of t-them,” she stammered. It was like climbing a mountain while an avalanche was speeding down towards you. She had believed herself to be safe, and now…

She could remember almost nothing. Just a feeling of weightlessness at most, one that stood like a curtain covering the beast behind it. But it was a curtain as fragile as a web, one she could easily pierce through with the merest attempt.

And when she dreamed, she could not control her own dreamscape. She was not outside the dream, free to shape and sculpt it. She was trapped in it, and could only conform to the shape it took.

When she dreamed, she lived it again. There was no breathing, no beating of her heart, no pulse. No sight, no sound, no sun nor stars to measure the passage of time. It turned a moment into an eternity.

She had kept trying to scream and cry, but she no longer had a mouth. She could only scream in her head, and so she did. It never helped. All she wanted was to scream, to vocalize her rended heart until her throat bled and she could no longer move and unconsciousness claimed her.

She knew why this had happened to her. She knew all the reasons, all the victims, all the charges and excuses. And after spending a thousand years there, she had come out of it with one conclusion; It wasn’t fair.

There was no mercy. She had no body to tire. There was no relief. Just voiceless screams and a timeless, senseless void. She shrieked nevertheless, she begged and pleaded with thoughts as hard as steel, and nothing came out of it. Nothing ever would. The world, the universe, life, magic… they all didn’t care.

She wondered sometimes, how long had passed in the world until she went mad in there? A century? Two?

Less than a week?

“Luna, if it comes to that—”

“T-The g-g-girls a-are to stay un-unharmed,” Luna reiterated. The pressure of her eyelids were the only safeguard against the threat of tears. “If it’s… If it’s a c-choice between me going back there a-and them being h-hurt… You… You don’t h-hurt them! Not one of them!”

She felt his fingers brush against her cheek and then into her mane, massaging her scalp and the base of her ear. Foul leather texture, but it was his fingers, and that was enough. “I won’t. Don’t worry about that. Besides, you have a shield. As long as I’m around, you are safe.”

“We don’t even know if your immunity is enough to s-stand against them!” she almost sobbed, the speed at which everything becoming bleak once again overpowering her.

Light as a feather, his fingers opened her eyes and she saw him smile softly at her. “Yeah we do. The Tree didn’t manage to stop me, did it? The Elements have the same magic. You will be fine, Luna. Trust me. And hey, they still the actual things, right? All we need is get one of them. That’s all.”

She trusted him. She was going to be fine. She had been so far, much longer than she had thought possible. “Yes. I am… I am better now. It might prove to be nothing either way. Maybe Celestia hasn’t noticed or there is nothing to tell her what happened. It might have worked for all we know. We are fine. Fine.”

“I think we’d better go. Go home and get some sleep, what do you say?”

“I agree. I’m sorry, I… I hoped we could do more. Make more of this night. I hoped… for so much.”

His finger playfully tapped her muzzle. “We still had our fun. Maybe we will repeat it again, who knows? Some time in the future, when… things have changed.”

“With a different outcome, one wishes,” Luna said, hopefully.

Raegdan’s smile hid behind a black cloud. “Luna, I don’t think I can—”

Luna lowered her head, thinking that she shouldn’t have hoped, when Raegdan’s palm caught her chin.

“I don’t think that’s out of the question. Sure. We’ll see sometime in the future. Right this moment, there is another matter that demands your attention.” Raegdan raised his arm, signalling at the waitress.

“Can I help you, Sir?” the waitress asked. She glanced at Luna, frowning at the way the Alicorn slightly heaved before her eyes widened. She shot Luna a precocious wink, and turned back to Raegdan, misunderstanding completely.

“Can we get our dessert really quick before we leave?”

“Dessert?” Luna asked, perking up.

“Certainly. I will bring them up right now.”

“W-What’s the dessert?” Luna asked Raegdan after the waitress left.

Raegdan half-stood, peering over everypony’s heads. “I should have asked. Well, I can’t see that clearly from here, but it looks like large bowls of dark chocolate,” he said, almost laughing. “And they… oh. No, I was wrong. Now they are pouring the chocolate. Heavens, are they trying to murder us by sugar?”

“Oh my stars! Can we get seconds?” She imitated him and looked over the seating ponies, ignoring any thoughts of propriety. She could just make out the bowls that Raegdan talked about being loaded on a tray, and a quiet squeal of glee escaped her when taking note of the size.

“You can have mine if you—” Raegdan’s hands ran over his pockets before he swore in his language.

“What?”

Raegdan sat down, leant forward, and urgently whispered to Luna. “I completely forgot to take any money with me! Now what?”

Luna covered her eyes with her leg and burst out laughing, feeling much better.

“That was a fucking disgrace,” Raegdan grumbled as they walked side by side.

“I do not understand why,” Luna said honestly.

“I’m the guy. I’m supposed to be the one who pays the bill. I had one job!”

“Oh, is this how it goes? Let’s take this road. It’s longer, but this dress hangs too low and I would rather not ruin Rarity’s hard work on a dirt path.”

“I… think? Yes. Yes, that’s how it goes. I’m supposed to pay the bill and—I didn’t pull your chair for you to sit, did I?”

“You did not.”

“Fuck!”

“Was that an important part or custom?”

Raegdan lifted three fingers. “Two jobs. I had two jobs.”

“That’s three fingers.”

He lowered two of them, leaving the tallest of them still standing and pointing upwards with the fist’s top towards himself. “I was saving this one for me; I deserve it.”

“If you are worried over some kind of ridicule, then I would not dare reminisce recent events,” Luna advised. “Besides, I did not pay either. You can be the one to go over tomorrow and pay our debt if it means that much to you. It is wonderful how accommodating everypony in Ponyville has been so far, is it not?”

“I suppose there must have been a reason that Twilight has been singing its praises,” Raegdan conceded, kicking a pebble with the animosity only reserved for those not possessing a groin to aim at and hoped double the force would be a good enough trade.

“My sister must have had a good reason to send her here, after all.”

“It is the closest settlement to your old castle, that’s why.”

Luna lost a step and fell behind. “That… That can’t be simply it. This place is special.”

Raegdan shrugged and kept his pace, two steps ahead from her. “It’s not that different from other villages and small towns according to her.”

“It’s not?”

“Nope. In fact,” he said, shaking a finger upwards, “she claims it’s not even that different from how they used to be in your time. That’s another reason she liked the idea of us coming here. She thought you’d feel more comfortable than Canterlot.”

“They are all so… nice here. I thought it was because of Twilight or-or the rest of them,” Luna confessed, glancing at the wooden structures around her, bewildered.

The point was that everypony is, or can be, equally important and thus worth knowing.

How could her voice sound so natural when she felt her windpipe constricting? Or was it her chest where she felt that undeniable pressure building?

“Then… Does that mean that… everypony has always been like… them?”

“I don’t know. Maybe? People don’t really change. Mostly they just pretend to be otherwise.” She couldn’t see Raegdan clearly anymore. Her vision, her precious eyes that hadn’t let darkness keep any secrets from her for so long were finally failing her. She barely saw the shadowy blurr that was his arm move next to his ear in dismissal.

“Don’t get me wrong, there are pricks here as well, but from my experience you find them mostly in bigger places,” Raegdan continued. “This is more often than not as good as it gets. That’s why the city pricks rush to such places when the shit comes flowing. It’s easy to take it from these guys. Though you might have a point. I think this place is probably among the best you can get.”

They matter if you are able to move and change your seat.

She hadn’t. She moved but never sat down, never knew them. She moved from one to the next, ignoring the candlelight and—

You forced me and my friends to help you and you do not even remember? My friends, my brother, got eaten by those worm monsters! You told us to make noise to attract them back and then you left. You left us alone to become their meal! Where were you?

She wasn’t there. She didn’t care. Why should she? She didn’t know them, they didn’t matter, they were nothing. But if they were like the ponies she met here… Did she… Did she drag a Rarity out to her death? How many Twilight Sparkles died when she lead them to the dark, how many brave guards like her very own had she killed when—

I don’t want to die, please, help me, somepony help me!

She had done this so many times.

Mom! I want to go home! Mommy! Help, help!

When the image from the sonic device had shown the twin foals in her womb, the love shared in the wordless look the expectant parents shared was almost palpable in the air. Luna could almost feel it setting on her like gentle snow. They were just… parents. Parents who loved their children already.

Spare my children, please, they are too young, please!

Children like Rarity’s sister. Applejack’s sister. The young pegasus filly that followed them. Young Spike.

I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe, dig me out, out, out, outoutoutout

All of them candles, and she had been the wind that blew them out without ever noticing the warmth, the light, the love, she just moved and moved and moved, flames guttering out wherever she went, gargling in blood, because she did not care, she did not know they were all special, she didn’t want to know they were all special, they were all special, they were all like this place, like the ponies she knew, like her guards, like these precious mares that became her friends, and she never cared, never cared, never cared—

Spike, for some unfathomable reason that Twilight would never be able to unearth unless she thought for zero point one seconds, wanted to stay up over his usual bedtime and keep her company. Weirdly enough, he kept her company in the library where they could watch the door and not their little flat upstairs or the kitchen.

No questions or jests were done. If there were, then the other one would ask why the first questioner stayed up as well, and neither of them wanted that. Instead, they just drank tea after tea. And every now and then, they visited the bathroom in turns.

Their vigil came to an end with Rarity’s weight crashing onto their door full force.

Spike and Twilight were not given time to ask any questions. If the sight of Rarity sweating and shivering hadn’t given them pause, then Raegdan’s entry would. He was carrying Luna in his arms, the Alicorn tucked into a tight bundle with what must have once been a beautiful dress now covered in mud and torn at places. He kicked the door that led to the basement open, and slammed it close with his shoulder.

There was a minute of silence, briefly broken by the heavy footsteps as they descended behind the closed door. Then just silence.

Then Twilight spoke. “What in the name of Tartarus happened?”

“I don’t know!” Rarity wailed, breaking out of her stillness. Her leg reached blindly for support, and Spike was there in an instant to guide her to the couch.

A hastily reheated cup of tea later, a few pillows to support her, and the ruination of every tissue Twilight had, Rarity was finally in position to speak in non-breaking syllables. “Everything was going… not perfect, but good enough!” she rushed out. “There was no-no… They left the restaurant laughing!”

“Was it an attack? Did somepony try to hurt them?” Spike asked. He picked up a hammer Raegdan had forgotten on the counter and sneaked to the side of the window to peek out of.

“No. I… At least I don’t think so! Careful with that, Spike,” Rarity cautioned. “They were on their way here, I was coming along from some distance behind, and suddenly Luna collapsed, just… I think she was saying something, she was crying as well, but Raegdan picked her up and send me ahead to make sure the door was open.”

“You sure did,” Spike said, picking up the broken hinge from the floor.

Rarity turned to Twilight, tears trembling at the end of her eyelashes. “Twilight, dear, I swear I never meant for something like this to happen. I thought I took every possible measure to make sure they had a good time, I never imagined—”

Twilight shushed her, and gave Rarity a brief hug to help calm her down. “It’s fine, Rarity. This is not your fault. Let’s just wait and see what’s wrong first, alright?”

“Yes. Yes, of course, darling. A princess is in need of help, this is no time for me to fall apart.” Rarity took a deep breath, standing up to her height and former behavior again. “Do you think we should go see how she is?”

They both glanced at the door, unwilling and unsure if their presence would be welcome. Spike walked up to it and placed his ear against the wood, listening intently. The two unicorns waited patiently while the baby dragon listened in and blinked in surprise.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Spike warned, backing away.

“Why not?” Rarity questioned.

“I think they’re shouting to each other.”

They waited, and Spike’s claim proved itself true. Angry shouts from both sides, with nothing clear enough to understand. Like a thunderous stormfront, the voices grew louder until there was no ignoring the venom and malice in them.

The door was hammered open by Raegdan’s forearm and he walked out, gritting his teeth bare in an ugly grimace. He swivelled around, holding the door by the edge.

“You go ahead and bury yourself with them if you care so much. It will save the rest of us time since you want to kill yourself in fucking guilt. Like a fucking moron!” he roared down the stairs before slamming the door with all his strength and heading for outside.

The basement door was open again as he made it to the front door, Luna standing at the threshold. The fur on her face was matted down with wet streaks, letting everyone know she had been crying, but now her eyes burned.

“At least I’ll die a moron and not a monster, not like someone else!” she screeched back at Raegdan, her bellow almost deafening Twilight.

Raegdan paused, his hand on the door leading outside. He half-turned, as if his blind, covered eye was able to see Luna, and responded so quietly it might as well have been a whisper.

“A few dead kids too late to say that, isn’t it?”

There was a moment of quiet that stretched forever in the space between Raegdan and Luna. A second later, Luna broke it. “I don’t want to see thee ever again.”

“Fuck you, too,” he answered.

The doors slammed shut behind each other as one. Luna vanished back to the library’s basement, and Raegdan was swallowed by the dark outside.

The front door fell down, startling Rarity enough to let out a small yelp of fright. The basement door was slowly creeping open, the repeated loud hits breaking the latch hole apart, rendering it unable to hold the door closed anymore.

In among a terse silence they heard Luna’s quiet sobbing make it up from downstairs, barely audible and heart rending.

Rarity covered her muzzle with her hooves, ready to begin crying herself. “This is my fault, my fault, I didn’t want this to happen, I didn’t mean for this…”

Spike tapped nervously at Twilight’s side, begging for attention. “Twilight, does that mean he is going to leave again? Where is he… What are we gonna do?”

Twilight pulled herself together. She had been as shocked as the other two were, but knowing there was no one else to look up to for guidance spurred her to action, as it always did. “We will fix this. Rarity, calm down. I need you and Spike to go downstairs and talk to Luna. Calm her down, ask her what happened; make this right. Can you do that, Rarity? Spike?”

The white unicorn nodded so fast her head was a positive blur. “Yes. Anything. We will fix this, darling, you are correct as always. What about you?”

“I’m going to go talk to Raegdan. Come on, let’s go!”

“Raegdan! Raegdan, wait!” Twilight yelled, not wasting frivolous time caring for the fallen door behind her. She looked left and right, trying to get a hint of which way she should run. The night was pitch black and cold, and with no sign of where Raegdan could have gone.

“Raegdan!”

“I’m here, Twilight.”

Twilight quickly turned around. Raegdan was sitting on the ground, his back resting against a stack of unused lumber from all his previous work that he hadn’t cleared out yet, everything but his head and shoulders hidden as he sat.

Twilight sat next to him, her relief palpable. She was afraid she would have to chase or search for him in the Everfree or even… she didn’t know where, and it didn’t matter now. He was right there next to her, gazing up at the night sky. His previous anger had faded away, replaced by a quiet sadness.

Twilight confessed her fear. “I thought you would have left.”

Raegdan didn’t answer, not until a few more seconds passed, and his voice was almost heartbreaking, unbroken enough to make sense only through force of will and bitter familiarization.

“I have nowhere else to go.” He swallowed, his throat shaking, and let his head hang. “I have nowhere to go… I walked out and—and I couldn’t think where to go. You all have your own lives. All I have is Luna. I have nothing else. If she doesn’t need me anymore then what is there left for me?”

Twilight swallowed, holding back the wave of grief, still unaccustomed to consciously thinking on how much loss he had suffered through. It was almost as if the wall he put up had crumbled or… or one of his masks finally removed. “I was afraid you would have ran into the Everfree Forest or something. That you were mad enough to leave and… live alone, like Zecora, perhaps.”

“If I could do that I would have done it already, don’t you think? When you left and after Luna returned instead of... “ He put his palms over his face, covering his eyes and muffling his voice. “I can’t. Not again. I don’t want to be alone again. If Celestia hadn’t put up with me, if she had forced me to leave, I… I don’t know…” She heard a sound come from his throat that she had only heard once before, behind a closed door, a sound that he didn’t manage to drown.

“Raegdan…” she murmured soothingly, laying a hoof on his thigh.

He threw his palms down, uncovering his eyes, the streaks of tears obvious and swarming with more, his fingers curling in beseechment to the unknown. “What am I supposed to do now that Luna kicked me out, Twilight? Where am I supposed to go? What will I do?” he said, trying and failing to hold his sobs back. He ran a palm over his eyes, and left it there, hiding his tears but not his crying.

“She’s not… Raegdan, she won’t. And even if she did, which she won’t… You could come live with me!”

Raegdan’s body shook, either in a silent, great sob or a silent bark of laughter. “With you? Really? Did you think of that for a second?” he mocked.

“I like having you here. I told you!” Twilight insisted.

“Yeah, right. For a week or two. Can you imagine having me live here forever? Forced to run behind me to make up for my fuck ups? What if I hurt someone you care for, Twilight? What then?” he asked. “You can’t… You won’t. You’ll tell me to leave.”

“I won’t. I promise, please, don’t… don’t cry, I swear I won’t—” Twilight felt like crying herself. Raegdan wasn’t supposed to, to… He was supposed to be steel! To hold on, no matter what! Her eyes prickled each time his breath hitched, and she felt her chest clutch in pain to see him so afraid of what might be.

Raegdan bent his knees, bringing his legs closer to his body as if trying to find comfort and one of his arms hugged them to his chest. “Your mom and dad will do the same, and Celestia won’t take me in again, not after I screwed up things with Luna—”

“Princess Celestia would never do that,” Twilight interrupted, and believed it wholeheartedly. Princess Celestia would quarter Raegdan, no matter what he believed, and she would do that because she wanted to, not because he had nothing else—which wasn’t true!

Raegdan continued on as if he didn’t hear her, his panic and despair growing by the moment. “—and I’ll have to go somewhere else. I’ll be alone, even if I don’t go through… Heavens help me, I can’t! I’ll go crazy, and then—and then—I’ll have to kill myself or else—And if something happens to Luna, if something goes wrong because of the way I fucked up I will go crazy. I’m barely hanging on, I keep seeing things, hearing things, remembering things, I can’t, I can’t—”

“Enough! Raegdan, look at me. Look at me!” Twilight exhorted. She wouldn’t hear this, she drew the buckingline at this kind of talk. She used her hooves to turn his head, and the sight broke her heart. He looked… shattered, worse than he ever had looked, even after receiving the worst of his injuries.

She remembered the moment when that knife had gone through his eye, and the moment he fell. That was him taking as much as he could and standing up despite it. But this? This was him taking more than he could! He was ready to fall and stay down.

“Answer me. Yes or no: Do you care about Princess Celestia? Do you love her?” Twilight ordered.

Raegdan’s voice and lips trembled as he tried to choke out an answer. He gave up almost immediately and simply nodded.

“Even now? Or when you were so angry with her? At the height of your anger?”

Raegdan shook his head. “I.. I never hurt her. Never would. I wasn’t… I wasn’t really angry with her. I-I mean I was, but not really, just-just wanted her to know that I was and then I couldn’t—I didn’t want to stop and think…”

Twilight smiled, with an equal tinge of sadness, awareness, and pity. How can he be so old, she thought, yet more of a child that Spike sometimes? “So, as much as you disagreed or angry you were, you still cared. You still loved her. No matter how blindingly angry you could get with her.”

Raegdan nodded again. He was still tearing up, Twilight noticed. And he shivered. She had seen him covered with snow, half dressed, but he never shook like this.

“Then why shouldn’t Princess Celestia be feeling the same? And if her, then why not her sister as well? Raegdan, I think you should go back inside to Luna. You had a disagreement—”

“Fight. It was a fight. A real one, Twilight. I said… I said things to her. And she said… she said she doesn’t want to...”

“A fight,” Twilight acquiesced. “Friends fight sometimes. It’s not right, but it happens. Then both sides sulk a little before they get back together and resolve their differences. Luna wouldn’t want to lose you, Raegdan. She cares for you, same as you care for her, as Celestia cares, as Spike and I care. You wouldn’t leave her, would you? I know you wouldn’t, no matter what. She said things to you as well, and look at you. Look what the mere idea has done to you. She loves you just as much. I’m sure she feels just as horrible right now.”

“But…”

“But nothing.” Twilight stared straight into his eyes, letting nothing but certainty show in her stare. “Take a few minutes. Calm down. Then we will go back inside and you two will talk it out. You will both apologize to each other, and accept that this might happen again.”

“The things I said—”

“She’ll forgive them. Like you will forgive the things she said in turn. I heard quite a bit, I know what each of you said,” Twilight told him. It’s amazing how you worry like this over a few words, yet I’ve seen you aim kicks at her head when doing one of your little mock-up fights, Twilight thought, trying to make herself feel some levity that she could show off to Raegdan, without success.

“What if she doesn’t, Twilight? What if she tells me to leave for real next time? What if I end up alone again?” he wailed, crushing her heart.

“She won’t. She won’t say that,” Twilight repeated, and she stood up, raising herself up on her hind legs in order to hug him, covering him as much as possible in her embrace. “And you won’t be alone again, Raegdan. I promise.”

Raegdan started crying anew, trying to cover up his face and stifle his sobs.

“It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m sorry. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know!”

“It will be okay. We’ll figure it out.”

“I’m trying. I swear… I’m trying… but it’s so hard. It’s so hard. Everything scares me. I’m trying to protect you, but I don’t know how. It’s all the same. Everything’s the same. I can’t tell them apart anymore. I can’t tell them apart…I’m so sorry, little one. I’m sorry I left you… I’m so sorry...”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.”

Twilight held Raegdan in a protective embrace, a complete reversal of how it always had been. They stayed like this for a while, ignoring the cold. All that mattered to Twilight was listening to Raegdan’s breath slow down, and his heaves stop. She held onto him with all the strength in her limbs.

Somepony cleared her throat. Twilight wasn’t surprised to see Luna had come out or that she looked as horrible as Raegdan did, her eyes bloodshot. Rarity and Spike were waiting behind her, illuminated by the light coming out of the library, near the broken down door.

Twilight tightened her hold for a fleeting moment, and then slowly let go of Raegdan. She walked back to Rarity and Spike.

As she passed by Luna, Twilight smiled encouragingly at her. Luna didn’t smile back or even look at her. She stood, grim and quiet. Twilight believed she would do the right thing however. She believed that Rarity and Spike managed what they set out to do.

“I am here to apologize.” Luna bent her head, clenching her eyes shut.

Raegdan didn’t answer. He didn’t even lift his head.

“I was angry at myself. No, hated myself. Still do, I believe. I… never thought in such ways, and all this anger, all this despisement I felt had to be directed somewhere,” she continued. “And I directed it to you when the real target was me. I was wrong, unfair, and a hypocrite to demand that—”

“That’s enough,” Raegdan said, lifting his head.

“I’m sorr—”

“Stop,” he almost begged, quietly. He lifted himself up. “No apologies. I don’t want any. Just… are we okay, Luna? That’s all I want. Do you still want me to leave?”

Luna shook her head hard, two fresh tears sliding quickly down her face. “No. Never.”

“That’s all I want,” he said, letting out a sigh of heavy, deep weariness.

Twilight doubted if anypony could tell how much he had broken down only minutes before, and a wave of worry struck her. She had thought that one way or another, wrong way or not, Raegdan had ways to deal with his issues and choices, in the long past or recent. Now, she suspected that all he managed was to keep the lid on while he crammed everything inside.

“Let’s go get some sleep then,” Raegdan proposed, the lid solidly back in place and his previous stocky presence returned. “And Luna?”

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry. For everything I said.”

Me t—” Raegdan bent and covered her mouth before she had time.

“Bed; I’m tired,” he insisted, and Luna smiled and nodded, following along.

Twilight, Spike, and Rarity moved aside, letting them go in first. When they went down the basement, Luna using a simple spell to keep the door closed enough, Spike punched the sky in victory and jumped as high as he could.

“See?” he asked Rarity, who laughed lightly in similar relief. “I told both you and Luna! Dad never keeps grudges or is angry at his friends! Never!” he insisted in exhilaration.

“No, he isn’t,” Twilight agreed, and she had to give Spike credit for the observation. Raegdan was never really mad at anyone he cared for. Only for a few minutes at worst. Then he forgave everything. All of it.

It only added to her new fears of how much was raging beneath the surface.